US cellular customers are also paying more and getting less.

A new study confirms what you might have expected: US customers are getting hosed when it comes to broadband speeds and prices.

The annoying trend holds true in both wired and wireless service. In the Cost of Connectivity 2013 report being released today by the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, researchers note that "in larger US cities, we continue to observe higher prices for slower speeds… In the US for example, the best deal for a 150Mbps home broadband connection from cable and phone companies is $130/month, offered by Verizon FiOS in limited parts of New York City. By contrast, the international cities we surveyed offer comparable speeds for $77 or less per month, with most coming in at about $50/month. When it comes to mobile broadband, the cheapest price for around 2GB of data in the US ($30/month from T-Mobile) is twice as much as what users in London pay ($15/month from T-Mobile). It costs more to purchase 2GB of data in a US city than it does in any of the cities surveyed in Europe." The analysis compares costs across countries by using purchasing power parity exchange rates.

The survey does not cover the entire US or the world, or even all major cities, but it does provide a nice sampling of cities in which you'd expect good connectivity. The list includes all cities surveyed in the 2012 version of the report plus Kansas City, the first Google Fiber site. These cities are:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Berlin, Germany

Bristol, VA, United States

Bucharest, Romania

Chattanooga, TN, United States

Copenhagen, Denmark

Dublin, Ireland

Hong Kong, China

Kansas City, KS, United States

Kansas City, MO, United States

Lafayette, LA, United States

London, United Kingdom

Los Angeles, CA, United States

Mexico City, Mexico

New York, NY, United States

Paris, France

Prague, Czech Republic

Riga, Latvia

San Francisco, CA, United States

Seoul, South Korea

Tokyo, Japan

Toronto, Canada

Washington, DC, United States

Zurich, Switzerland

"We selected a number of cities that ranked highly in surveys of Internet speeds, including many at the top of the list in the Akamai report, as well as major cities with relatively similar population sizes and densities," the New America Foundation wrote. "We also chose to include three smaller US cities which have municipal broadband networks: Bristol, VA; Chattanooga, TN; and Lafayette, LA. These cities currently offer some of the fastest Internet connections in the US because the local communities have invested in and built their own communications infrastructure."

There are much better deals in the US than what made it into the report. But these deals are often found in small cities. Residents of Springfield, VT and surrounding towns can purchase gigabit speed for $35 a month, and numerous other cities and towns have gigabit connections in the $70 range. Google Fiber customers can get a gigabit up and down for just $70 a month as well.

The best prices worldwide (such as in Seoul and Tokyo) make even Google Fiber look expensive, though. Take a look at the wired speed leaders (1000 is 1000Mbps, or 1Gbps):

(Editor's note: The chart from New American Foundation had an inaccuracy pointed out to us by a reader. EPB in Chattanooga offers 1Gbps service for both download and upload, not 1Gbps download and 50Mbps upload. The chart is now updated, and also corrects pricing for Hong Kong.)

You'll find the best prices for triple play packages (Internet, phone, and TV) in Seoul, too (albeit with 10Mbps speed instead of 1Gbps):

Mobile is disappointing in the US, too

On the wireless side, the Cost of Connectivity report examined data-only mobile Internet plans, "which typically utilize a USB-based 'dongle' modem. We do not include mobile data services that are part of a combined voice and data subscription plan."

"T-Mobile offered the best deal among the US providers, but it still placed 12th in our rankings behind all of the European cities surveyed," the report said. "China, Japan, Mexico, and South Korea fell lower than the US cities, although it must be noted that the Japanese provider offers an unlimited plan, while the lowest available data cap in Seoul is 5GB. Moreover, the providers in Asian cities offered base packages with much faster speeds—100Mbps download in Hong Kong and Seoul—than any of the other providers included in this ranking."

In the US, wireless providers are increasingly monetizing data caps by charging users for any data they use beyond their limit. Internationally, "most providers throttle users instead of charging for data overages," the report said. "Last year, for example, Verizon switched from throttling to charging for data overages, leaving T-Mobile as the only US provider which throttles rather than charging steep overage fees."

What's the takeaway from all this data? It's not a surprising one: lack of competition makes for bad choices.

"[T]he most affordable and fast connections are available in markets where consumers can choose between at least three competitive service providers," the report said. The New America Foundation plans to follow up next month with a more extensive report that will "analyze the roots and impact of high costs and low speeds in the United States" and offer policy recommendations.

What do any of those stats mean without cost of living, GDP, avg income and disposable income for each city??

No doubt we (in the US) are being hosed but I think its not broken down enough to fully understand the scope...

e.g, Hong Kong... How much of an hours work,( based on the avg hourly pay in Hong Knog) get them compared to what we get here, in an hours work?

I'm not sure about Hong Kong, but some of these cities have pretty high cost of living, I.e. Zurich and London might even beat New York. Others are pretty cheap, Berlin for example. Still London ranks better than most Americans and Berlin isn't that good.

But if we just deregulate some more, I'm sure that eventually Ayn Rand's wet dreams will all come true. Now everyone clap for Tinkerbell.

Should also be mentioned, that European telecom markets are so heavily regulated, companies are complaining all the time they can't make an honest buck. Some even threatened they wouldn't be able to invest further for the future...Seems it worked out all right...

That's pretty much it right there, sadly. By the way, I'm on the $30 T-Mobile plan with 100 minutes, Unlimited Text and *Unlimited Data for 5GB, throttled speeds after cap hit. Though I doubt this 3GB increase from the exemplified 2GB won't do much anyways, embarrassingly. T-Mobile user since 2005, nothing else.

Starting with November a Romanian ISP is gonna release 1 Gbps fiber for 15 Euro in 150 areas. That's sick.

That happens to be my ISP. At the moment I am paying $12 for 100Mbps (no data caps) + one USB Dongle (7.2Mbps down / 3.6Mbps up, throttled after 5GB) and for $6 more I could upgrade to 1Gbps, but I don't think I need it.

Starting with November a Romanian ISP is gonna release 1 Gbps fiber for 15 Euro in 150 areas. That's sick.

That happens to be my ISP. At the moment I am paying $12 for 100Mbps (no data caps) + one USB Dongle (7.2Mbps down / 3.6Mbps up, throttled after 5GB) and for $6 more I could upgrade to 1Gbps, but I don't think I need it.

Hey thanks Ars, looking into J:Com for my households mobiles now. AUs quality leaves a lot to be desired phone call wise, and only having 7GB of net on my mobile is a pain. (You will be surprised how quickly you can chew it up when you have the bandwidth).

Virgin Media, northern England (small town):60Mbps (3Mbps upload), $32 per month (marginal, on top of phone line which for us is best with Virgin Media anyway). Could get 100Mbps / 6Mbps for $50. (On mobile phone service with O2, I'm paying about $23 per month excluding discount, for 500 minutes/ unlimited SMS/ "unlimited" data with about 1GB "fair use" cap) - this is the kind of deal you can find here when you dump the "18-month phone contract" model and move to a monthly SIM-only contract. With Virgin Media, I'm consistently getting the service advertised, with very rare exceptions.

I'm not sure if Omaha, NE falls under "big city" (Kiplinger seems to think so), but Cox does offer 150 mbps DL / 25 mbps upload for $99.99. Still doesn't compare to prices/features overseas, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Same here in Phoenix Az. $99.99 gets 150 Mbps down and a lot of times the real life DL speeds will actually get up to 180-200 Mbps. I don't bundle with TV and this is not a promotional rate so I'm not sure why this study doesn't give Cox any credit.

I live in Seoul, and it looks like these prices are a little skewed or incorrect. Right now, I pay just over 50 bucks a month for 6gb of LTE data (and rollover) on KT (there are three major mobile providers, KT/SKT/LGU+, and LGU is very small compared to the other two). However, with my service, if I want, I can sign up for a mobile hotspot solution for less than 15 bucks a month that affords me 10+gb of data.

For internet, I pay KT around 25 bucks a month for 100/100. It's FTTP, and 100Mbps ethernet inside my complex. I've been itching for 1Gbps symmetrical for some time, and it's not widely available - CJ Hellovision 1Gbps is kind of... it's not available to me for sure (they're a reseller) and after doing a quick survey of my office, most of the dudes here think that it's kinda fiber to the press release. Most of their connections are coax - CJ bought a lot of small coax providers over the last couple of years.

KT used to be the national provider for wireline and telecommunications services, and I use them because they have more cross-pacific bandwidth provisioning (so I get better VPN speeds). Basically, if KT can't do 1gbps, no one can, and at the moment they only serve new cities and brand new apartment complexes with that stuff - I think they're JUST starting to roll out upgrades to older complexes and parts of the city.

Anyway stuff is super cheap here, but it seems weird that the study both got it wrong in terms of it being TOO cheap/available, and also TOO expensive. At the same time.

I'm still stuck with a shared 10Mbps connection for $50/month, and I had to install a $400 antenna to get it, all because I live in the outskirts of a small city of 25,000. All you whiners complaining about your "expensive" Petabit connections just hush. It could be a lot worse.

I pay the same for 3MBit. There's always somebody who has it worse and I'm sure there's somebody who has it worse than I do.

Oddly, I think 3MBit is fine. I'd pay for more but I have the fastest Internet in the area. I can stream 720p on YouTube, but Netflix struggles at that level. Does fine at 480p. I guess I've just been stuck in the 1.5MBit mindset for so long that 3MBit seems like a luxury.

What do you do with 10MBit or more? Torrent all the things? Even at 3MBit I feel like I'm waiting for the servers more than they're waiting for me. And even when I torrent, say, some Android ROM where BitTorrent is an option, let's say, I never hit my full bandwidth. When you're downloading from people with dialup, it takes dozens of them to supply a file at full speed to a broadband user. Many dozens.

ISP Response to Congress: Because of quantum wave mechanics and industrial light and technology. Thx licensing requires us to provide higher prices for Pixar development. This results in increased tax levy for us and higher operating costs of dunkin donuts. so as you can clearly see, because of this we have to charge customers more. Of course if you gave us tax breaks, allow us to create fair usage plans of 1mb per year. We can drop those prices to say eh... What you think bob? $80 a month.

I'm not sure if Omaha, NE falls under "big city" (Kiplinger seems to think so), but Cox does offer 150 mbps DL / 25 mbps upload for $99.99. Still doesn't compare to prices/features overseas, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Same here in Phoenix Az. $99.99 gets 150 Mbps down and a lot of times the real life DL speeds will actually get up to 180-200 Mbps. I don't bundle with TV and this is not a promotional rate so I'm not sure why this study doesn't give Cox any credit.

I think they have still been rolling that out around the country, maybe the data was collected before the roll out started (even newly released studies may have some out of date data depending on how long the collection process took, how long they took analyzing the data and writing the results)

Even though they have improved their price to performance ratio, the premise of the report is still holds for them. They are charging much more for similar speed in Europe and charge more than much faster connections in Europe, Asian and Google's select cities.

What do any of those stats mean without cost of living, GDP, avg income and disposable income for each city??

He makes a valid point. I think we are still getting ripped off, but you dont compare the the cost of rice in India to the cost of rice in america without taking into account cost of living differences. I dont get why hes getting so many downvotes

Don't get me started on the government's NBN. That retarded thing won't even reach me in my life time not to mention being horribly gimped in speed and cost God knows how much more p/m.

I presume you're talking about the LNP Fraudband as opposed to the FTTP solution?

If you mean that one with the 'mad-monk' in charge, then yes.

Those idiots make me so mad.

"I want to be known as the infrastructure Prime Minister""25MB/s is fast enough for anyone"

The Americans whinging about their costs is insane when the LNP want 25MB/S at current prices (100GB caps are rarely cheaper than $70) to be the standard for 2019.No wonder we pirate so much; there's no money left for media after buying a reasonable cap.

What do any of those stats mean without cost of living, GDP, avg income and disposable income for each city??

No doubt we (in the US) are being hosed but I think its not broken down enough to fully understand the scope...

e.g, Hong Kong... How much of an hours work,( based on the avg hourly pay in Hong Knog) get them compared to what we get here, in an hours work?

This is a perfectly valid point.

The "price" of something is different to the "cost" or "value" of something, and typical pay rates are part of that. The same argument applies to most other goods and services too.

When you talk about cost of living, is $100 is the USA the same as $100 in the other countries on the list?

(Also has VAT been deducted from the UK prices?)

You also have to consider the size of the land mass. I live in the UK and our island could fit into Texas something like 4 or 5 times.So the infrastructure cost of laying fibre optic cable across the whole of the UK is a fraction of what it would cost to lay fibre optic cable across the whole of the USA.

This is a factor that drives up your prices.

I'm not saying your high prices are justified, but there are other factors that need to be considered, and the picture is not necessarily as clear as this research claims.

What do any of those stats mean without cost of living, GDP, avg income and disposable income for each city??

He makes a valid point. I think we are still getting ripped off, but you dont compare the the cost of rice in India to the cost of rice in america without taking into account cost of living differences. I dont get why hes getting so many downvotes

Because we are not comparing to India here - we are comparing to European capitals, Seoul and Tokyo - places that are at least par with the average US income and cost of living in eg. New York.

So yes - his point could be valid, but even a basic knowledge of the world outside the US would tell you that in this case the point is moot.

The BBC ran a similar article which reflects 'cost of living' comparative graphs for those who are interested.

There is one reason and one reason only why the US pays more; it's because they can! #gouging

"When a community builds its own network it enters the market with a lower price than the incumbents had been offering. Often the incumbent then lowers their price - often even further than the municipal network is offering - so when a community starts offering a service the prices typically drop."

Don't get me started on the government's NBN. That retarded thing won't even reach me in my life time not to mention being horribly gimped in speed and cost God knows how much more p/m.

I presume you're talking about the LNP Fraudband as opposed to the FTTP solution?

If you mean that one with the 'mad-monk' in charge, then yes.

Those idiots make me so mad.

"I want to be known as the infrastructure Prime Minister""25MB/s is fast enough for anyone"

The Americans whinging about their costs is insane when the LNP want 25MB/S at current prices (100GB caps are rarely cheaper than $70) to be the standard for 2019.No wonder we pirate so much; there's no money left for media after buying a reasonable cap.

Aye, and unfortunately the retard Conroy is back in Labor so we're screwed either way. It would be so nice to have someone who's level of technical knowledge was greater than "The Internet is just a series of tubes" making long-term IT infrastructure decisions. But alas, anyone that intelligent would likely never enter politics in the first place.

But if we just deregulate some more, I'm sure that eventually Ayn Rand's wet dreams will all come true. Now everyone clap for Tinkerbell.

Should also be mentioned, that European telecom markets are so heavily regulated, companies are complaining all the time they can't make an honest buck. Some even threatened they wouldn't be able to invest further for the future...Seems it worked out all right...

Note that US companies are complaining about the exact same thing, and making the exact same threat. I think any non-zero amount of regulation makes them act like that.

(Oddly enough, it is my impression that European ISPs are investing more in infrastructure than US ones.)

As others posters have noted, cost of living could be a factor, but it doesn't even come close to addressing the entire difference.

For the record, my Hong Kong communications bills:

Uncapped cable modem 100mb up and down, approximately US$20 a month on a two year contract.Unlimited LTE data (throttled after 5GB/month) including tethering, 3500 minutes a month, approximately US$28 a month for a year-long contract. This could've been cheaper if I signed a two-year contract. Also worth noting, I supplied my own iPhone.

Compared to what I was paying in the US, it's quite great.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the one thing that I get less value from in terms of my HK cell phone service is how I am roaming once I leave Hong Kong, which means that I effectively have home cell phone coverage over a geographical area smaller than Los Angeles. My HK carrier, and it seems like most other than China Mobile, has no semi-cheap monthly roaming plans even for southern China or Macau, both of which are literally an hour away. Whereas in the US, everyone has national coverage now, it was quite nice that I could travel a thousand miles without worrying about roaming or swapping sim cards.

Still doesn't make up for the absurd prices I was paying in the US though.

What do any of those stats mean without cost of living, GDP, avg income and disposable income for each city??

No doubt we (in the US) are being hosed but I think its not broken down enough to fully understand the scope...

e.g, Hong Kong... How much of an hours work,( based on the avg hourly pay in Hong Knog) get them compared to what we get here, in an hours work?

Minimum wage in Hong Kong is about 4.50 USD / hour, while professional types outside the financial sector might earn around 10.50 USD / hr on average (taken via monthly average salary, divided by a mythical 40 hour work week).

The cheapest internet plan that I've seen this far is for ~8 USD / month for 10 mbs on a 2-year contract (a plan with 3 / Hutchinson, which ended as of this year).

Currently, the cheapest plan is around 15 USD / month for 10mbs, on the same plan mentioned above.